For every suicide there are thousands more children suffering from bullying, including many thousands

of students who stay home every day because of bullying.

When you search Google, you find 13 million entries under bullying, and over 1.5 million under anti-bullying.

There are many newer anti-bullying programs showing up at schools in the United States and elsewhere.

They tend to have something in common: They are generally namby-pamby and ineffectual efforts.

Wearing awareness bracelets, and talking about bullying, are simply not going to accomplish much, if anything.

It's true that it's good that, in recent times, more people are talking about bullying and trying to do something about it. But, in the end, it's all pointless unless something effective is done about it. "It" is the bullies who need to be controlled, the actual perpetrators. Bullies usually begin their "career' in childhood, going on their rampage of asserting control-freak power over others. As adults, that behavior often continues on some level. There will be many more suicides, hundreds of thousands of school-day absences, and plenty of misery until it becomes routine to control bullies, unwaveringly, at every school, everywhere.

The Peace Prescription, published last year, names Bully Control as one of the Five Steps needed to prevent violence and war. Bullies sometimes grow up to be gang leaders, or organized crime bosses. And, in some countries, a few become military leaders who use coups to become dictators, and then murder their own people and start wars with neighboring countries.

Every school needs an effective, serious, Bully Control Committee, operated by teachers, parents, and students, with the support and attentive response of school principals and the school boards. These committees may need the support of legislation so that bullies can be referred for mandatory counseling or face suspension, and even expulsion. Bullies should have to fear being sent to juvenile detention centers. Parents should understand that they will have legal and economic consequences if they don't control their child bullies.

Why not help get a Bully Control Committee started at your local school? Contact your child's teacher, or the principal's office, and volunteer to help get it going. The younger the age of the bully when the management and control begin, the better the results will be, and the fewer the awful consequences, such as FOUR suicides of bully victims at just one high school!